


Grounded

by veritascara



Series: Ad Astra [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Hope, Introspection, Meditation, Multi, Parent-Child Relationship, Pregnancy, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 05:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18329927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veritascara/pseuds/veritascara
Summary: In the quiet of the evening, Hera takes a few moments to meditate—both for herself and for the baby.





	Grounded

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, look who's back! Real life and mental health things have made writing a challenge over the past few months, but I've finally got the next story for all of you. Thank you all for waiting so patiently and sticking with me on this wild ride. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Thanks forever and ever to [uhura_ismylastname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uhura_ismylastname/pseuds/uhura_ismylastname) and [Anoray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anoray/pseuds/Anoray) for their beta reading and constant encouragement. You guys are the best!

Rung by rung, Hera climbed the ladder towards the Ghost’s living quarters, shifting her weight carefully to avoid bumping the awkward bulk of her belly with every step—a challenging feat, as it seemed to grow bigger with each passing week.

With a final pull, she heaved herself up through the hatch to sit on the hallway floor, forced to pause a moment to catch her breath. What she always intended to be a quick trip into her cabin seemed to take longer every day. Even simple tasks now felt like they required monumental amounts of effort—effort her body hardly felt it could spare.

But somehow, she did them anyways.

Hera pulled herself to standing with a huff, turning automatically towards her cabin, when an unexpected roar of laughter echoed from the galley, shattering the quiet she’d somehow grown accustomed to on her ship. She stopped her in her tracks.

At first the foreign sound startled her, but as she strained her senses to hear better, the pieces slotted together in her mind. The first laugh was joined by a second, the laughter quickly giving way to bantering conversation, a verbal tango she’d had the steps memorized to for years—all but forgotten now.

“And then I picked him up and threw him into the hold! Kid tumbled head over heels three times and landed against the back with his legs folded over him—looked like a dead mynock.” Zeb paused for a moment, and Hera could picture him demonstrating the scene in some way. “Heh. You shoulda seen his face.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Kallus’ voice replied evenly, a smile in the words.

“And then he says to me, ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ And I say, ‘Is that all I’ve . . .”

Hera’s mind wandered, tuning out Zeb’s retelling as her own memory took over, the scenario as clear in her mind as if it had been yesterday: another of Zeb and Ezra’s petty fights in those early months when all their relationships with the boy had been new—still settling into the familial rhythm they’d eventually found. Ezra had immediately bounced back up to push Zeb—the boy might as well have been made of springs—and the two had knocked over several crates of cargo in their scuffle. She smiled at the remembered image of both of them frozen, staring up at her in fear, when she’d finally reached the lower deck and glared in frustration at their antics . . . and the mess.

As clear as yesterday—now so long ago. Hera sighed. Every happy moment in the past now seemed to exist as a bittersweet memory. She turned back to her cabin, closing the door behind her to shut out their conversation. She’d rather not eavesdrop anyways.

In the silence of her own room, Hera shrugged out of her brown coat, laying it neatly across her worktable, her rank plaque hitting the surface with a sharp click. _Next time, I should just toss it in the hold_ , she grumbled internally.

Free from its encumbrance, her shoulders felt lighter, freer, and she stretched her arms over her head and twisted back and forth in an attempt to relieve the ache that had taken up permanent residence in her lower back. All in vain, of course—nothing seemed to take that away anymore.

For a brief moment, her eyes drifted up to her bunk, the gentle sussuration of her ship’s systems tempting her to lay down and simply sleep, like the distant strains of a hummed lullaby. But then the baby shifted ever so minutely inside of her, and she remembered why she’d come in here in the first place . . . and where she’d planned on going. If she sat down now, she doubted she’d manage to get up again.

And she should do this. She needed to.

 _For the baby’s sake, if not my own_ , she told herself.

That always got her moving.

With a yawn, she reached for her other jacket hanging on the wall and wrapped herself in the soft, unadorned gray fabric as she shuffled back to the door controls.

“Oh!” she said in surprise, when it slid open to reveal a purple and grey mountain unexpectedly in her path. Zeb stood mere inches away, his hand raised into a fist as if preparing to knock. Behind him stood Kallus, a bulky crate in his arms. Both of them blinked in surprise at her sudden appearance.

“Hera! Didn’t expect you to come out so soon there.” Zeb rubbed at the back of his neck with his hand. “We just got back in this evening and wanted to give this to you.” He jerked a thumb back at Kallus, and the other man stepped forward, setting the box in front of her.

“What is it?” Hera eyed both of them with confused curiosity. Living a nearly hand-to-mouth existence in a life on the run, she’d never been accustomed to receiving gifts, and suddenly being presented with a large one for no particular reason felt strange.

“Look and see,” Kallus said. “I am quite certain it is something you will appreciate.” The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile, and Zeb nodded eagerly, stepping back by his side.

Hera released the latch and lifted the lid off the crate, her breath catching in her throat as she surveyed its contents.

“Baby things,” she whispered, reaching a hand gingerly towards the items within. “You got things for the baby,” she repeated, wonder filling her voice. Her fingers trailed over soft, woven blankets, serviceable fabric diapers, and dozens of items of clothing in sizes tinier than she could have imagined existed.

“We, uh, knew you hadn’t been able to get out to buy anything since you’ve been stuck planetside, so we got a, uh . . . variety. I hope it’s all useful. The lady at the market said it was all things a human sort of baby would need . . .” Zeb’s voice trailed off as Hera lifted a small hat, barely larger than the palm of her hand, gazing at it in fascination. “If the baby takes after you, I figured we could always cut some holes for the headtails,” he said, gesturing to the back of his own head.

Hera smiled softly. “It’s perfect.” A wave of emotion, no longer unexpected after all these months, made her eyes pool a little with tears, but she blinked them back and was grateful when they did not run over. She stepped forward and laid a hand on Zeb’s arm. “Thank you. And you too, Kallus.”

Kallus nodded back with a satisfied smile.

“Just gotta give you back a little of everything you’ve given to us. You deserve all the best, and so does the kid,” Zeb replied. “And, uh, I don’t know if you ate already, but if you wanted to join us you are welcome,” he added, gesturing towards the galley.

Hera shot a quick glance at Kallus, catching a brief second of dismay on his face before his expression became impassive again. The two were definitely having a moment she did not want to interrupt.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m fine. I was just going out.” She waved a hand towards the ladder below.

Both men suddenly appeared relieved.

“You can put the crate . . .” Hera’s voice trailed off as she looked at the enormous box at her feet. _Where? Where should they put it?_ The thing shouldn’t be left in the hold; she needed to be able to access it easily. But her own room didn’t have the storage space. She didn’t want to mess with anything in Sabine’s room, since she came by at regular intervals to visit. And of course Zeb was here to use his own.

That left only one cabin.

Hera shot a glance at the door to her right, and something settled inside her chest. Yes. It was time to put the space to use again.

“Put it in Kanan’s room.” Saying the words out loud brought unexpected relief to a burden she hadn’t even known she’d been carrying, as if making Kanan’s room the baby’s space were the most natural thing in the galaxy—one of those things her heart had somehow already—always—known, even if her mind hadn’t yet caught up.

“Of course,” Kallus replied, moving to immediately do her bidding.

“Where are you going?” Zeb asked, as Hera stepped towards the ladder.

“Nowhere really. Just out for a walk.”

“ _You_ are going for a walk?”

Hera found her footing and looked back up, catching the anxiety and mild disbelief on Zeb’s face as she began descending. He always worried too much. “I’ll be fine,” she deflected. “Have a nice date, boys.”

Zeb froze and looked back up at Kallus, endearingly flustered by her comment. “I mean . . . it’s not _exactly_ a date, but I guess if you looked at it that way it could maybe–”

“Mmhmm. Not a date. Got it. Don’t wait up for me.” Hera smirked at both of their sheepish faces for a brief, teasing moment, then continued making her way downwards, relieved when the next landing materialized beneath her feet.

“Did she call us boys?” Kallus’s loud whisper carried down from the deck above her, and Hera chuckled to herself as she descended again to the nearly-empty cargo bay.

The world opened up around Hera as she walked down the Ghost’s ramp and made her way across the tarmac, cataloguing the activity around her in the soft evening light. The hectic frenzy of the day was now giving way to the gentler buzz of evening. It was still strange, in a way, to experience it, to know what it meant to have day and night circling each other in an endless parade, to feel the cadences of Rebellion life cycling back and forth with the rotations of the moon. After spending so much of her life among the stars, where night and day were more abstract concepts—matters of necessity dictated by the limits of the body and imposed at will to refresh it—she’d hardly considered what a life planetside would feel like.

How strange and familiar at the same time it would be.

Hera shivered and pulled her jacket a little closer around her, grateful now that she’d taken the time to fetch it after all, as two x-wings returning from their patrol of the system kicked up a sudden, unexpected gust of wind. Since the moon’s shift from its warm to its cool season, Yavin IV’s nights had become almost chilly in comparison to the months of sweltering heat they had endured before. But at least the days were comfortable for most beings now. Hera picked up her pace a little and pressed herself forward, doing her best to ignore the aching in her hips as she circumnavigated the central temple. She passed only a few dozen people in the midst of their evening duties, yet still caught glimpses of at least a couple confused stares amongst them—unfamiliar faces glancing back and forth between her belly and her face before predictably averting their eyes in mild embarrassment.

For her part, Hera had learned to simply ignore the stares and continue on. With as many new recruits as the Rebellion constantly picked up, she seemed to be an eternal object of interest and gossip on the base. It wasn’t like there were an abundance of heavily pregnant Twi’leks around—or pregnant members of any species, for that matter. And the now-classified circumstances in which she’d attained her rank as General, along with her young age, relative to the other members of High Command, never failed to arouse curious minds. From a logical point of view, she really couldn’t blame them; she would have been too. But she’d been immensely thankful to Wedge and Zeb and a few others for their ongoing efforts at quashing the rumor mill at every turn.

As the distance grew between Hera and the temple, the footsteps, the voices, the sounds of ships coming and going on their missions, each one as vital as the one before, all melted away, replaced gradually with the sounds of the forest—a gentle murmur growing into a lively chatter. Rounding the far side of the second temple, a stalwart monument to the religion of Yavin IV’s ancient past which the Alliance had left alone for the most part so far, the song of the forest swelled around her, and Hera left the walkways behind to wander along a narrow footpath woven through the trees until she came to the small meadow tucked away near the base’s perimeter fence.

Here the trail disappeared entirely, overgrown with thick grass that brushed her calves, and she waded through it to the center of the ring of trees.

There, she knelt.

The grass, as always, was soft beneath her knees, and Hera let out a deep breath and closed her eyes, willing her body and mind to settle. It always ended up being harder than she wished. She wasn’t very good at this, but damned if she wasn’t going to at least try, for the baby’s sake.

For a few minutes she fought, attempting to clear her whirring mind of the incessant stream of thoughts and tasks that followed her from one moment to the next. Simulator plans. Group flight maneuvers. Skill reports. A hundred other tiny tasks that demanded her attention day and night—each and every one of them declaring themselves urgent right this moment.

Hera sighed and opened her eyes again. She couldn’t do it. Not that way. Not tonight.

A pang of disappointment struck first, then a flash of envy at how easy Kanan had always made slipping into meditation look. Her own attempts over the past couple months had met with mixed success at best.

She wasn’t Kanan. She never could be.

But she wasn’t about to give up. If it wouldn’t work that way today, she’d try the other.

 _There’s always a way,_ she told herself.

Carefully, she unclasped the necklace around her neck and laid it in her lap, fingering the kyber crystal and appreciating its soft, bluish glow in the gathering darkness.

Then her fingers began their journey, moving almost automatically from one bead to the next as she recited the prayers each one represented.

_“Goddess, bless the babes in their mothers’ wombs.  
Goddess, bless the mothers as their hearts and arms grow full.” _

Line by line, she let the cadences carry her along, her mind settling into the words like a familiar, warm blanket. And gradually, the cares of Rebellion life faded from her mind, dissipating into the air like smoke on a breeze.

_“Goddess, bless the children as they learn to stand tall.  
Goddess, bless the fathers carrying burdens great and small.” _

_The fathers . . ._ Hera’s heart lurched a bit at that line, her mind nearly yanking itself back to the present, but she let the thought go and pressed on, bead after bead, following the circle back to the center, her shoulders lightening as the anxieties and strain of the day faded away with each stone she passed.

“ _Mother of balance, bring us peace_ ,” she murmured, wrapping her palm around the crystal again. Her thoughts quieted, worries ceased—mind finally empty and quiet.

For a few, luxurious minutes, Hera found that she could simply be. As if nothing else existed in the galaxy beyond herself and the forest around her. The gentle music of evening rose and fell with her breathing—the melody, a lone bird trilling from the trees; the harmony, a woolamander calling for its mate; the rhythm, a thousand nightbugs chirping pleasantly. In her hand, the crystal grew warm.

A gentle breeze brushed across her face like a caress, and Hera shivered, less from the cold than from the familiarity of the gesture—so intimate, yet so universal—like the lover’s touch she longed for. She felt that if she listened even more closely, she could hear Kanan’s voice echoing in her mind, “ _Now reach out,_ ” the way she’d heard him tell Ezra over and over in those early days.

_But reach out to what?_

She never knew.

If only she could reach out into the Force and touch him.

Hera sighed and let the thought go, surrendering back to her quiet meditation for a couple minutes more. Then the baby began to stir—slow, lazy stretches inside her belly—as if the child had awakened from their slumber in response to her stillness. One hand drifted to her stomach, and she smiled to feel the press of small limbs against her palm. Over the months, the sensations had grown stronger, more forceful, the baby undeniably exerting their own will within the confines of her womb—her tiny starbird preparing to fly free and unhindered from one end of the galaxy to another.

Perhaps the baby would be like her in that way, restlessly longing to heed the call of purpose—the call of the stars—wherever it might take them.

She could feel that call pulling at her even now. But there was nothing in the galaxy she could do about it.

Nothing but wait.

Hera sighed. It had been a month since she’d last flown among the stars—a month since an already-rare trip to Lothal had ended with unexpected contractions, and she’d been consigned to a torturous week of bedrest, followed by strictly enforced light duty. Paperwork and planning had since consumed her days.

The baby kicked against her hand, as if following her train of thought and the frustration it wrought.

“For you, it’s worth it,” she whispered. “Perhaps you’ll be more like your daddy anyways.”

Kanan, her steady rock. Kanan, who, despite spending so many years on the run, always longed to put down roots.

Kanan, the Jedi.

 _You are already so like him,_ she thought.

Hera opened her palm to view the glowing kyber within, and emotion welled up in her heart, her vision growing blurry with tears as she stared at the gently pulsing light in her hand.

So like him. Yet she herself knew so little—could do so little. How could she ever teach their child to embrace the Force when she couldn’t do so herself—when there was no one left in the known galaxy who could teach them at all?

Her incomplete attempts at meditation were merely a shadow, and a faint one at that, of the depths she knew must exist beyond her reach. What parts of their being would her child never be able to explore, because she was unable to guide them? And that wasn’t even taking into account that she knew next to nothing about the Jedi heritage that only Kanan could have bestowed.

Their baby would be the child of two cultures, but how could she ever hope to adequately convey them both?

_Would she even be able to impart her own?_

She’d been away from Ryloth for so long, even her native tongue felt strange on her lips. She found herself deferring to Basic nearly all the time, even for the prayers. She had been so young when she’d been sent away, that the stories, the songs, the dances, the rituals all floated around in her mind like half-forgotten dreams—drifting further away each time she sought to grasp and examine them.

Hera’s worries spiraled higher, the fleeting peace she’d found with meditation bolting into the night. Her fingers closed tightly around the necklace in her palm. A bite of pain dragged her further back into her body, the crystal and beads and digging into her skin.

Mama’s beads.

She could see her. Mama, with her deep green eyes that always felt as if they could stare right into her soul. Mama, whose arms held her tight when battles raged overhead and who sang words of hope to calm Hera’s stormy heart when her own must have been shattered to pieces with grief. Mama, who still fought for her daughter’s freedom until it claimed her own life.

Sometimes her mother’s strength felt unfathomable, unattainable. Like taking steady, sure-footed steps through zero gravity—no, not just a few steps—to walk every day as if gravity hadn’t affected her at all. Until, of course, it did. How could Hera ever compare?

A thousand questions about birth, about babies, swirled in her mind—things that must seem ridiculously simple to others but still felt like profound mysteries to her. Her mother would have known the answer to all of them, could have told her those vast secrets, so far outside the realm of her own knowledge. She hardly even knew where she needed to start learning, Zeb and Kallus’s gift attested to that.

For all the time over the past few months she’d spent wrestling with the emotional aspects of having a child, she’d put far too little thought into the everyday practicalities. She’d recently had the stray thought that she should ask Sabine to pick up some things on Lothal and bring them on her next visit, but that was about as far as she had gotten on that count. Even then, she hadn’t really any clue what a baby needed.

She had no idea. And time was running out. _How much longer? Another month and a half? Another three?_

 _And when the time came, how would she manage being a mother after spending so many years motherless herself?_ The small part inside of her where that devastated eleven-year-old still resided asked the question she didn’t want to hear.

 _Motherless—might as well have been fatherless too,_ she thought bitterly.

Her more rational, adult side regretted the thought as soon as it arose in her mind. In retrospect, she could see the marks of grief woven through everything her father had done. And if she really were to admit it . . . would she have done any differently after Kanan’s loss, had she not had the baby to keep her focused, to tether her to the ground, when all her instincts would have otherwise told her to run, to fight, to fly?

 _But he had me!_ her child self cried out again.

 _We both had lost so much_ , her mind answered. _And now we’re right back there again._

The familiar ashen taste of bitterness, served with a good helping of regret, filled Hera’s mouth—all that was left of the anger which had burned so bright months before. And now, where her father was concerned, she was just . . . stuck.

Stuck wanting to reach out to him, but not really knowing how.

Hera looked down at her belly and stroked the round curve, undeniable and obvious now for what it contained.

She should have just told him months ago, but the fire had blinded her, and now . . .

Now it wasn’t safe to tell him over holo—not that this was the sort of news that should be served any other way but in person. And she couldn’t leave for Ryloth; she was grounded here. She supposed she could ask him to come visit, but the unexpected request would almost certainly alarm him in the worst sort of way.

 _He wouldn’t want to leave his cause, anyways_ , she thought, the bitterness creeping back in. _This isn’t important enough._

 _But he is the only blood you have left!_ The other side of her mind protested. _Of course he thinks you’re important. Of course he’d come._

Round and round in anxious circles her mind spun, until she came to the same conclusion she always did.

“Later. I’ll talk to him later,” she muttered. There was no sense agonizing over all the what-ifs at the moment. She’d keep to the path life had set her on and cross that bridge when the time was right. Maybe after the baby was born and was big enough to travel, she’d make a careful trip to wherever he was hiding out on Ryloth, or find another quiet point somewhere in the Outer Rim where they could meet him in person.

That was all she could do.

A sharp, low kick from the baby nearly took Hera’s breath away, startling her out of the maelstrom of her thoughts. She winced at the ache in her back and the tense knots forming in her shoulders. Beneath her, her feet were completely numb.

Hera groaned. _How did Kanan do this for hours at a time?_

Carefully, she unfolded herself and stretched her legs out, sitting as still as she could manage for a few minutes, until the painful prickling subsided from her limbs. But the tense set of her shoulders and the ache in her head remained.

Hera opened her hand to see the crystal inside of it, its soft shimmer revealing the deep imprints its rough edges and the nearest beads had left in her skin, and she let out a sigh. She needed to move on, to once again set aside all the anxious thoughts that bombarded her mind, release them into the galaxy, where they might leave her in peace. As it was, they did her no favors.

 _Just let go_ , her mind whispered.

Let go. It always sounded so easy. But those two small words represented a monumental task.

_Let go._

She might as well try. There was no sense going back to the ship more wound up than she’d left it. And what had Kanan always said about how those strong in the Force could perceive emotions? How they were affected by them more easily? She looked down at her belly. Nothing she did in life was truly just about her anymore. She supposed it never would be again.

Slowly, Hera eased herself down to lie on her back. The thick grass gently cradled her form, a welcome relief for her weary, tightly wound muscles. The moon around her had shifted from twilight to full night, the last light of day having faded from the sky. The only glow now came from the dull, rust-colored dark side of Yavin above, tonight hanging low, its curvature just visible among the treetops, and from the stars.

_How she missed the stars!_

A wave of longing, and a strange feeling she’d come to identify as homesickness washed over her as she considered their positions, named to herself the tiny pinpricks of light from this sector that she knew the best, the foreign constellations they formed—the ship, the anchor, the child.

 _Soon. Soon she’d fly among them again._ That much was certain in her mind, no matter how hazy the rest of her future appeared to be.

“And I’ll take you with me,” she whispered to the child in her belly. “What do you think of that?”

The baby gave no reply, not that she’d really expected any.

Then Hera lifted the necklace in her hand and laid the crystal on her abdomen, letting the beads fall neatly into a spiral orbiting it. The effect of the action was immediate. The baby launched a firm kick at the kyber, making it jump on her stomach, and in response, the stone pulsed with just a little more light, the push and pull of the two now a very familiar rhythm. Week by week, the child’s movements had grown stronger, and—at first she hadn’t been certain, but now she knew without a doubt—the crystal’s brightness had increased steadily in tandem.

She watched with amusement, her anxious thoughts fading into the back of her mind, as the baby’s movements grew wilder, the whole of her belly rippling and shifting as they sought the object still just out of reach. A particularly hard jab took Hera’s breath away and knocked the necklace off her belly entirely, and she laughed in response.

“Peace, little one.” She caressed her stomach, relishing the feel of the child’s limbs shifting under her hand. “Here, let’s practice again.” She extricated the crystal from the grass and laid it back on her belly, her fingers gravitating back to the first bead, the prayers on the tip of her tongue.

But for a moment, she hesitated. The words in Basic suddenly sounded wrong in her mind, no matter how much she had spoken them over the past months. She’d spent an eternity tiptoeing around that tender core where everything connected with her childhood lay tucked away. And for what? There was no sense in it anymore. Without allowing herself to think any deeper, she opened her mouth and began to chant.

This time, the ancient Ryl slid off her tongue like water, softly at first, like the first drops of rain landing one after another on the leaves of a thirsty plant.

“ _Ryma’at, lao ji ercirak ootay e'an tislera aan usala.  
Ryma’at, lao ji tislera veo e'an voe vil alh vlahs t'ari.” _

But with every passing word, her voice grew bolder, the blessings flowing one after another as a steady, gentle stream. They carried her along. An echo in her mind—Mama’s voice whispering in time with her own—carried her along.

“ _Ryma’at, lao ji ercio veo korjin jalran ar ksilan mliry.  
Ryma’at, lao ji tisla tolsan ranirsiga mliry vil si'hlirki._”

Perhaps it was the prayers, or perhaps simply the sounds, the gently rocking rhythm of the words reverberating through the depths of her being, but soon the baby’s movements settled—their wild chaos mellowing into a gentler dance within her as she continued, line after line. Dozens of blessings she’d never understood as a child that somehow now made sense deep in her gut in a way her mind could never comprehend. A hundred other voices joined with hers, the swelling sounds of night echoing in the forests around her, her own words but a tiny part in the grander chorus.

“ _Tislera bo li'irtan, a'norkunan geo tiu.”_

The baby swayed to the cadence, back and forth, dancing sure steps within her. At once seeming so separate from herself, and yet not—two beings existing in a single body. The more she let her mind go, thoughts floating away in her determination to simply feel the world around her, the blurrier the line that delineated one from the other became.

And somewhere in that blurriness, must exist the Force.

“ _Now reach out,”_ Kanan’s voice said again, an intimate whisper in her ear.

 _But how? What did he mean?_ her mind protested.

_“Don’t think. Just feel.”_

_Reach out._

_Reach._

Hera lifted a hand, stretching her splayed fingers out towards the sky. It felt silly, like she was a child playing at something only grownups could ever understand. But there was no one to watch. What did it matter?

She could do it. She knew she could.

_Could she?_

For a few long moments nothing changed; then there was . . . something.

It began quietly, a whisper of warmth taking root in her chest, like a tiny tooka kitten, curled around her heart. Then it began to spread—a sense of peace, profound beyond measure, flooding her from her head to her toes, until she no longer knew where she ended and the galaxy began. She could never have described it in words, but she could feel it—feel herself a part of the dance of the universe, along with the heavens above, the moon below, and the child inside her womb. The ground was beneath her and the stars were overhead, and she was strung in the middle of two worlds, belonging somehow to neither but attached firmly to both.

Sounds swirled around Hera again, and she was in the sound. She was the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears. She was the sibilant voice of the breeze blowing through the trees. She was the bellowing insistence of the woolamanders’ calls—every tone a note layered into a grand symphony.

Tucked away somewhere underneath all that crescendo of sound lay the very song of the universe itself.

And she swore that if she listened very carefully, she could almost hear the music.

**Author's Note:**

> Just one more story to come to round out the primary arc of this series! We'll see after that if more related story ideas crop up over time. I'm not going to try to estimate how long it will take to finish the finale, as that story will be significantly longer than most of the others and life has been pretty unpredictable. But a couple good chunks of it are drafted already, so we will get there. We really will. Thank you all again for following along!
> 
> And you can find me on **[tumblr](http://veritascara.tumblr.com/)** for writing updates in the mean time. <3


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